Gender Issues

Health care officials, including primary care providers who staffed the base camp clinics and the hospital, told GAO that the Army's health service support system in Bosnia was able to meet women's health care needs. For example, they said that very few women had been evacuated to the military hospital in Germany for female-specific health problems. GAO surveyed 234 female soldiers who had recently served in Bosnia to obtain their views on female-specific medical services and health-related issues in Bosnia. The biggest concerns raised by many of the women was the lack of information provided to women before they deployed on female health and hygiene. Women said that they would have benefitted from more information on how to prepare for an impending deployment, such as information on the availability of female-specific medications and supplies, on the health care system that would serve them during deployment, and on best practices for staying healthy. Women also raised concerns about the quality of medical support provided to them and about the privacy and confidentiality of care at the clinics, which were described as being very small and lacking interior walls and doors to shield persons being examined.

GAO noted that: (1) outpatient health care data is collected from medical treatment facilities in Bosnia, but this data has limited value for assessing the health care needs of deployed female soldiers; (2) data collected on non-female-specific health problems is not broken out by gender; (3) while data on gynecological visits is collected, this data does not show the specific reasons for each visit; (4) consequently, the types and extent of women's health care needs, including female-specific needs, cannot be quantified; (5) collecting this data would enable the Army to study the everyday aspects of the gynecological health of military women, especially in field conditions, and to identify and correct any shortfalls in medical services provided to deployed women; (6) health care officials, including primary care providers who staffed the base camp clinics and the hospital, told GAO that the Army's health service support system in Bosnia was capable of meeting the female-specific health care needs of women; (7) about two-thirds of the women GAO surveyed who reported having gynecological problems said all or most of their female-specific health care needs were met while in Bosnia, while the other one-third said only a few or none of their female-specific health care needs were met; (8) female soldiers expressed some concerns about the Army's medical services and other health-related issues in Bosnia; (9) a frequent complaint was the lack of information on these subjects provided to women before they deployed; (10) women said they would have benefited from more information on how to prepare for an impending deployment, for example, information on the availability of female-specific medications and supplies, on the health care system that would serve them during the deployment, and on best practices for staying healthy; and (11) women also expressed concerns about the quality of medical support provided to them and about the privacy and confidentiality of care at the clinics, which were described as very small and lacking interior walls and doors to shield individuals being examined.

Recommendations

Our recommendations from this work are listed below with a Contact for more information. Status will change from "In process" to "Open," "Closed - implemented," or "Closed - not implemented" based on our follow up work.

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